Wakf board to appeal in Supreme Court within a month

The Ayodhya verdict will be appealed in the Supreme Court within a month, the Sunni Central Waqf Board has said. The final call, however, still depends on the outcome of two crucial meetings of the All-India Personal Law Board (AIPLB), scheduled in the next few days.

“We should be able to appeal within a month,” Zafaryab Jilani, lawyer for the Waqf board, one of the parties in the Ayodhya dispute, told HT.

The Muslim law board’s legal committee will meet in Delhi on October 9, followed by a full meeting on October 16. The October 16 meeting will be attended by all leading Muslim organizations represented in the law board.

The Wakf board has enlisted three Supreme Court lawyers as “advocates-on-record”, one of who would have to sign the appeal on the Wakf board’s behalf.

In a landmark judgement on September 30, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court ruled that Hindus, Muslims and the Nirmohi Akhara (a denomination of Hindus) would equally share the title to the 2.77-acre disputed plot in Ayodhya.

Two of the three judges in the bench also ruled that the site was indeed the birthplace of Ram, according to the faith of Hindus. The site housed the Babri mosque until it was demolished in 1992 by Hindu protesters.

Jilani said three principal points to be appealed had been determined, which would be fine-tuned and more issues included in the final appeal.

“Existence of Ram Lalla as the birthplace of Lord Ram is not based on evidence but on faith. That’s the main point to be appealed against,” Jilani said.

Next, the Waqf Board would assert that Muslims were in uninterrupted possession of the inner courtyard of the disputed site for centuries until 1949, when idols were placed there clandestinely, while the outer courtyard was in the possession of one party, the Nirmohi Akhara.

Thirdly, the Waqf Board will contest the high court’s view that the mosque had been built against the tenets of Islam and Shariah.